Chinese businessman charged with hacking Boeing, Lockheed Martin

Stolen data allowed China to accelerate fighter tech development.

The US Department of Justice announced late Friday that a Chinese businessman has been charged with hacking into the computer systems of Boeing, Lockheed Martin and other aerospace companies. The alleged hacker, Su Bin, is accused of helping unidentified co-conspirators to identify what to steal from the companies' networks—including data on the F-22 and F-35 fighter aircraft and the C-17 cargo plane program. Su, also known as Stephen Su, an executive for a Chinese aerospace company with offices in Canada, was arrested by the Royal Canadian Mounted Police in British Columbia on June 28, in cooperation with the FBI.

According to the Justice Department, Su and the unknown hackers based in China started to collect data in 2009, and continued until 2013. The Justice Department claims that the group "gained remote access from China to information residing on the computer systems of US companies including cleared defense contractors.” In an e-mail Su sent, he said the aircraft data would help Chinese aircraft designers “stand easily on the giant’s shoulders,” and "allow us to rapidly catch up with US levels," NBC reported.

Ars will update this report with more details as they become available.

64 Reader Comments

I'm sure the Chinese will deny everything that he was acting on his own, and that the Chinese government would never spy on the US for any reason...

Blah blah blah and so on.

Meanwhile the Chinese and Russians are both developing Gen5 fighters very quickly. The one Gen5 fighter in the world, in service, is the F-22, which is not longer being manufactured, and we are being constantly told there is no need for it. Or the F-35.

if there was no need for it, why would the Chinese and Russians still be designing, building, and more importantly selling, Gen5 aircraft???

Chinese government constantly whine about not getting the respect it deserves, I wonder when will it realize that the amount of respect (i.e. next to none) given is exactly the amount of respect it deserves.

I'm sure the Chinese will deny everything that he was acting on his own, and that the Chinese government would never spy on the US for any reason...

Blah blah blah and so on.

Meanwhile the Chinese and Russians are both developing Gen5 fighters very quickly. The one Gen5 fighter in the world, in service, is the F-22, which is not longer being manufactured, and we are being constantly told there is no need for it. Or the F-35.

if there was no need for it, why would the Chinese and Russians still be designing, building, and more importantly selling, Gen5 aircraft???

Because no one listened to Einstein.

"I know not with what weapons World War III will be fought, but World War IV will be fought with sticks and stones."

Mankind can basically destroy itself completely just as soon as someone (or enough someones) get stupid enough. Most sane countries have realized that at the end of the day; nuke beats everything so it might be wise to focus on making peace and covering your ass for the major stuff instead of picking every fight that presents itself.

Key words being /MOST/ and /SANE/. You can follow the logic path from there...

I'm sure the Chinese will deny everything that he was acting on his own, and that the Chinese government would never spy on the US for any reason...

Blah blah blah and so on.

Meanwhile the Chinese and Russians are both developing Gen5 fighters very quickly. The one Gen5 fighter in the world, in service, is the F-22, which is not longer being manufactured, and we are being constantly told there is no need for it. Or the F-35.

if there was no need for it, why would the Chinese and Russians still be designing, building, and more importantly selling, Gen5 aircraft???

Because no one listened to Einstein.

"I know not with what weapons World War III will be fought, but World War IV will be fought with sticks and stones."

Mankind can basically destroy itself completely just as soon as someone (or enough someones) get stupid enough. Most sane countries have realized that at the end of the day; nuke beats everything so it might be wise to focus on making peace and covering your ass for the major stuff instead of picking every fight that presents itself.

Key words being /MOST/ and /SANE/. You can follow the logic path from there...

We're always told there's no need for something even if there is. Telling the "American People" about something is the same as showing your hand at the poker table; you might as well just send the blueprints to the enemy.

I don't like a lot of methods the government uses for many things, but the secrecy we have around what things are in development and saying we aren't building something that we probably are is just good old fashioned common sense.

Maybe for us the F-22 and F-35 ARE outdated, but only because we've already surpassed the design, not because we aren't smart about defense.

It's sickening seeing the Chinese stealing so much from us. I say let's retaliate by copying something they have labored on for decades. Like their ruthless, uber-controlling government that spies on anyone or anything that moves... errmm... never mind.

I'm sure the Chinese will deny everything that he was acting on his own, and that the Chinese government would never spy on the US for any reason...

Blah blah blah and so on.

Meanwhile the Chinese and Russians are both developing Gen5 fighters very quickly. The one Gen5 fighter in the world, in service, is the F-22, which is not longer being manufactured, and we are being constantly told there is no need for it. Or the F-35.

if there was no need for it, why would the Chinese and Russians still be designing, building, and more importantly selling, Gen5 aircraft???

They call the approach the "thousand grains of sand" because every little bit helps. China and Russia and Europe (EADS) are all developing Fifth Generation fighters because the ones they're currently using are nearly 40 years old. And also there's a stealth plane arms race that's been going on for a few decades now.

There is no "Lockheed" (from the headline). Writing it is like saying your stock broker is with Morgan (when you mean Morgan Stanley). This is not a recent change and the ARS editing staff should know better.

According to the criminal complaint filed in federal court in Los Angeles (dated June 27, 2014), and unsealed on Thursday 10 July 2014, Su Bin is his real name and he has two aliases (Also Known As = AKA) being also known as Stephen Su and Steven Subin.

You'd think that the US government would require better security of their military contractors or find different contractors.

Actually, the allow and encourage their employees and contractors to corporate surveillance in their spare time. I don't mean to be trollish and embed this link twice in the same thread, but you might be interested to read this TechDirt article and the linked report, which pretty much answers your question.

Short version : moonlighting NSA personnel + $$$$$ = all the corporate or BGO info you can eat.

so what... The US and many people from there often declare spying on (enemy) military assets to be one of the (legitimate) jobs of the NSA. And now they cry foul when somebody else spies on their military complex? Yeah, poor you...

It is to laugh. WE *the gov't that is) know the Chinese gov't are not our friends, and will do anything, and everything, to steal information from us.Yet we continue to do business with them.Normal people would have stopped long ago...

Classified computers are, but the majority of engineering information except highly sensitive items are on unclassified systems that are the employees normal desktop. Making everything classified would drive already high costs through the roof. Operating on classified systems imposes enormous constraints/overhead.

Seeing as the tech was developed with tonnes of public money, and lost through (probably) negligence at the targeted companies, I hope they will face severe fines. Maybe liability would provide an incentive for better security.

I'm sure the Chinese will deny everything that he was acting on his own, and that the Chinese government would never spy on the US for any reason...

Blah blah blah and so on.

Meanwhile the Chinese and Russians are both developing Gen5 fighters very quickly. The one Gen5 fighter in the world, in service, is the F-22, which is not longer being manufactured, and we are being constantly told there is no need for it. Or the F-35.

if there was no need for it, why would the Chinese and Russians still be designing, building, and more importantly selling, Gen5 aircraft???

The need for them to have it is because the USA has it. That's the very definition of an arms race. Money that could be spent on bridges, research, health, education, exploration, or tax cuts is getting turned into fighter jets that will sit on the tarmac for 3 decades until they're decomissioned. At least subsidies to oil companies result in energy prices marginally decreasing.

Also, I agree with the other poster that any conflict where you _need_ a 5th-gen fighter will quickly turn to nukes.

Never really understood why these companies like Boeing and Lockheed Martin don't have a separate LAN that is not connected through the internet to do the important work. Sure communication and ordering could be a problem with that system, but that should be trivially easy to design around.(Like using a thumb drive with a security chip to transfer data to a secure communications computer)

Well, yeah. They're in a foreign country that isn't exactly friendly towards the US. And guess what? The US is spying on them too! *gasp*

Not sure why this is news anymore. After the Snowden leaks I would think that people would be well aware that everyone with any capability is spying on everyone else and sometimes even on themselves.

It's Chinese businesses (with the help of their government) hacking everyone else for business reasons. Either it stops world wide, or it becomes accepted world wide.

Do you want to see Microsoft hack Google to get the early info on product changes? Comcast hack Netflix to find out what their execs are really willing to fight for? The patent troll hacking their victims to find the sweet spot for their extortion amount?

Sean Gallagher / Sean is Ars Technica's IT Editor. A former Navy officer, systems administrator, and network systems integrator with 20 years of IT journalism experience, he lives and works in Baltimore, Maryland.